Promise Fulfilled On 'Mount Hope'

April 05, 1987|by BOB WITTMAN JR., The Morning Call

The place that the parishioners sometimes still call Mount Hope is a little quieter these days - but only a little. Most of the children are grown now, and a few of the families have bought their own homes and moved into town.

The original long table in the basement of the dormitory building where they all shared noisy meals has been replaced with several small round ones. Each seats perhaps no more than four or five. And instead of the massive dinners they'd jointly prepare there, each of the families now uses the common kitchen at the times best suited to the demands of their own routines.

Indeed, a lot has changed at the Good Shepherd Church of Charity for All People. There are more material comforts there now than when the 50 urban refugees from Philadelphia moved to a new life in the wilderness of Monroe County 11 years ago. Even those who live nearby in surrounding Eldred Township have come to accept the congregation with little of the suspicion and none of the outright antagonism that they had reserved for the group when at first they found it in their midst.

Still, the Rev. Mildred Sharpton, 56, whose daring vision brought her followers to their mountaintop sanctuary between Kunkletown and Kresgeville against enormous difficulties two days before Christmas in 1976, remains a gentle but powerful force in their lives. She continues to be venerated, even by the outsiders who have had no first-hand experience with her ministry but who seek her out for spiritual help just the same.

And at 11:30 on Sunday mornings, when Sharpton steps behind the stone pulpit that dominates the hand-built sanctuary that the congregation completed in 1982, her words come quickly while the parishioners are swept along by the rhythmic cadence of her delivery.

She concentrates deeply. Her mind is in another place. She and her message become as one.

"We set our goals by what we believe in," she might say. "Somebody has to work for a better world."

The members of her congregation nod in agreement, seeing the truth in what she says.

"That's right," several voices rumble at once. "That's true. Amen."

So it is, and so, in particular, it has always been.

* * *

It was winter the first time Sharpton and a couple of her associates gazed upon the 13-acre tract on the crown of a hill opposite the Kingswood Lake resort near the western edge of the county. The narrow dirt road that leads to the property is steep, and that day it was also snow-covered and icy. So they had no choice if they wanted to see it but to travel its mile-or-more length on foot.

The parcel was largely undeveloped at the time. Except for the foundations of a house that had been started, then abandoned, the tract was completely covered with trees and brush. There was no electricity up there, and there was no well.

Although it was a beautiful spot, a peaceful place, with abundant views of the distant ridges of the Poconos chain, there was little on the land that could be of use to urban folks unskilled at improvising life's needs.

Still, Sharpton months before had had a vision of a mountaintop, and as she stood there on that first visit and looked around her, she realized that she was seeing her dream come to life. She immediately began the negotiations that led to its purchase.

"We were satisfied," says she. "We didn't look any further. This was the place that I had seen."

In Sharpton's vision, an old man spoke to her in a commanding voice.

"Go to the north of the mountain," the voice said, "and you will find refuge."

She had long been troubled by visions of upheaval - of nuclear war and of a poisoned environment and of the loss of the material abundance upon which society has come to depend. The one hope of escaping this doomed future, her visions told her, was to leave the city and learn self-sufficiency in the wilderness.

Not long after, she hiked up the icy mountain between Kresgeville and Kunkletown. When she got to the top, she had no doubts.

"I knew when I saw it, it was the place," says she.

* * *

To Sharpton's amazement, almost 50 members of the congregation, including 28 children, were willing to join her when she proposed relocating to Monroe County. Still, the responsibility of providing for a group of parishioners who ranged in age from 3 to that of an elderly woman who could get about only on crutches left her nearly overwhelmed.

"It frightened me almost to death," says she. "I had no idea that this many people would be willing to come."

Sharpton and three others served as a kind of advance party. The two men, Andrey Smith and Harvey Justice, set about to finish the building that the previous owner had started. Sharpton and the fourth member of the party, a female congregant named Lessie Bracey, began clearing the land and repairing the road.